final paper
This blog serves as my final cumulative posting for Te 302. The goal of this paper is to look at exactly what I have learned about myself as a teacher over the course of this semester. I will examine this learning specifically as it relates to fours areas; who am I as a teacher, what kind of literacy I want to foster in my classroom, how to motivate students, and what do I want from schools. I am drawing upon several facets of my development throughout this course, including; previous knowledge and ideas about education, past writings (Tozer, Orenstein, Brophy, and Labree), and my experience as a tutor inside an urban classroom. The combination of all three has helped to shape my initial transformation from student to
educator.
From an early age I have always enjoyed learning and school, as I got into college I realized that I could turn this love of learning into a career. When I started the semester I possesed a whole host of ideas about the kind of teacher that I wanted to be, but ultimately I wanted to be the teacher who was able to get her students as excited about learning as I was. The way I was going to do this was through encouragement of outside reading, looking outside the box, and putting high expectations onto my students. Taking this course has opened my eyes to see how much more goes into education in addition to molding your students into excited educated young people. Te 302 has been a transformation by placing us on the opposite side of the desk. In the educational philosophies article Ornstein divides education into four different types of philosophies. The type of teacher I want to strive to be is under the concept of pragmatism. A pragmatist defines education as “an experiment process- a method of dealing with problems that arise as people interact with their world.” (Ornstein, 395) A pragmatic teacher avoids being the dominate head of their students and encourages students to look to outside factors while building a diverse social and educational community with their peers to solve problems. Understanding that this is my goal does not mean that this is where I am at right now. The most important idea I learned about teaching is the concept that not every student has the initial will or want to learn. As educators we need to always be looking for new ways to motivate and inspire our students, but many times this needs to be put on the back burner for the better interest of the students. In the reading, Time Management, Weinstein points out exactly how much time is being wasted inside the classroom due to outside factors. This loss of ALT (actual learning time) contributes to a loss of nearly half of the time students spend in an hour long class. This idea was made very apparent during my time at Kiley Middle School,* where my teacher was not afforded the time to build an educational community. Mr. Jones* main focus was to get through the material with little or no interruption. As a new teacher getting through the required material by using time management will be my foremost goal.
When we first started the section on literacy, my definition was the ability to read and write. Upon further examinationI realized how many facets and categories there are involving a person being literate. We looked at two important articles on literacy from Tozer and Lankshear. Lankshear’s article explains how differing types of secondary Discourse leads to multiple types of literacy beyond reading and writing. “According to Gee, then, since there are multiple secondary Discourses, and since literacy and being literate are defined in terms of controlling secondary language uses, there are multiple –indeed, many- literacies and ways of being literate.” (Lanshear, 13) Examples of the types of literacies he is referring to include; computer literacy, mechanical literacy, and social literacy. As an educator it is important to understand that not all of your students will have an academic career. With that in mind I still think it is important to encourage and strive for all of your students towards becoming functionally literate. Throughout my tutoring I was horrified at the level of literacy my students were at. Many of the students I tutored could not read the text to decipherer the information in order to complete homework assignments. As teachers this should be our number one priority. Tozer refers to this as functional literacy, “the ability of an individual to use reading, writing, and computational skills in everyday life situations.” (Tozer, 253) Putting these two ideas together I have concluded that no, not all students will go off to college and it is important for teachers to allow students to explore different types of literacy; priority should still be focused on educating students (at the very basic level) to be functionally literate.
Motivation is something I didn’t think too much about before entering this class, however now it is something I know is vital to classroom success. How do we motivate the unmotivated or alienated students? This idea is what I want to focus on in the future as an educator and now as a student. Working at Kiley has opened my eyes to how hard it is to teach when none of the students make connections with the material. Keeping students excited and ready to learn seemed to be the biggest struggle I witnessed inside the classroom. As mentioned earlier nearly half of class time is wasted on outside factors, a great deal of which I think is due to lack of motivation from the students. Brophy discusses what he feels is the main determinate in a students motivation, “Apathy, not discouragement, is the ultimate motivational problem facing teachers.” (Brophy, 307) In his article Socializing the Uninterested or Alienated Student Brophy points out that most students value learning and would like to be successful however many do not see the value or ultimate use in the work they are doing. The main idea I took from the section on motivation was; teachings kids’ self-actualization and making the shift from alienated to active learner by instilling the idea that school is not about learning facts, but rather about realizing their human potential. Motivation comes from tying not only the bigger picture to the lesson, but making it relevant to each student’s individual agendas. Building on this idea, a teacher needs to be flexible, take feed back received from students to improve classroom involvement. If students see their suggestions being taken they will see their teacher taking an active role in their education which encourages them to continue taking an active role in their own education.
As future educator we should be dissecting the institution of school and how it affects the greater society. Before entering into schools we need to have an idea of what our expectations are for schools and how that relates to the kind of teacher we want to be. Going back to the first section (who am I as a teacher) I noted that I felt my convictions of teaching followed the pragmatic philosophy. As a pragmatist I would want my school to focus on what Labree refers to as democratic equality over social mobility and social efficacy. Democratic equality according to Labree is “the perspective of the citizen, from which education is seen as a pubic good, designed to prepare people for political roles. (Labree, 42) “Therefore schools must promote both effective citizens and relative equality.” The success of a school to promote democratic equality is contingent on three factors; citizenship training, equal training, and equal access. What these three ideas are promoting is the idea that everyone in America regardless of race, gender, and socio-economic status should be given the opportunity to be a useful member of society. The institution of school should not prevent any student from being successful in whatever career they choose. Democratic equality looks down on the ways that schools attempts to separate the masses to fill certain economic quotas. Programs like tracking, while seemingly successful, often victimize minority and poor communities, while promoting the self-fulfilling prophecy. Schools should not follow economic trends, because everyone under a democratic society should be afforded the opportunity to be educated equally. The only real thing I want from schools is that they give every child equal opportunity to succeed in whatever they desire.
The majority of changes that occurred in my ideas about teaching stemmed from my experience at Kiley. I was raised in a wealthy school system in the company of parents who valued education. This idea of school was all I had to draw conclusions about schools and education. After being a part of the urban school system I see how student’s needs are drastically different when educational opportunities are unequal. I know that as I progress in the college of Ed my ideas and values about becoming an educator with develop and mature. I am excited about the things am I learning and will continue you learning. This class was a great start in my development as an educator.
Bibliography
Brophy, J. (2004). Socializing uninterested or alienated students. In Motivating students to learn (2nd ed., pp. 307-334). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34, 39-81.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2003). The ‘New literacy studies’ and the study of new literacies. In New literacies (pp. 1-49). New York: Open University Press.
Ornstein, A. C., and Levine, D. U. (2000). Philosophical roots of education. In Foundations of education (7th ed., pp. 388-420). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
Tozer, S. E., & Willis, A. I. (1995). Liberty and literacy today: Contemporary perspectives. In S. E. Tozer, P. C. Violas & G. B. Senese (Eds.), School and society: Historical and contemporary perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 247-264). New York: McGraw
Weinstein, C. S. (2003). Secondary Classroom Management: Lessons from research and practice (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill
